Mike's Tavern

So, Reading PA is not the most up to date city in the US. It's a fairly depressed area, and Mike's Tavern sits in what could easily be a rowhome. If it weren't for the GPS in my phone, I'd be lost still. But Mike's Tavern, while a local dive bar, is very serious about their beer, their alcohol and their music. They have good single malt scotch and they have absinthe. They have four beers on tap that you haven't heard of, but which the bartendress will be happy to describe to you in terms of hoppiness and alcohol content. And they have open mic nights and good musicians in. At 7pm the after-work crowd is just finishing up. By 10pm the place is full of weekend couples out for drinks and companionship. Michael Ronstadt was slated to play from 8pm on, and invited me to join him, to premiere some of our songs. In his first set, we did "O Zebra" and "Little Jack Horner." "Little Jack Horner" was so good that the folks in charge asked it the song was on a CD. In the second set we did "Cassandra Blues" and "Falling Angels." I didn't realize we were going to do "Cassandra" and had to scribble the lyrics on a few pieces of paper and read them off, so the song didn't go off as well. "Falling Angels" is a frightfully difficult song and I botched the melody and Michael botched the timing and the whole thing fell flat. Sigh. We will have to review the song before our next outing. But I've seen great musicians get up at empty venues and give it their all -- Michael certainly does. So it was an educational and foundational experience. Looking forward to the next time. We'll nail "Falling Angels" yet. And we'll finish "Irish Queens" one of these days.

The Microphone Awaits

Well, here we go. Saturday night, I’ll be premiering two new songs at Thrive Station’s home concert series. This week Michael Ronstadt will be showcased, presenting his solo work and some collaborations. We’ll be singing (for the first time in public) “Little Jack Horner” and “Falling Angels.” (Both lyrics have been tweaked a bit since they were posted here, I’ll have to put the final versions up soon).

I remember getting on a stage when I was around 10 years old, so that’s when I think I started acting. So I’ve been a performer for a long time, but always in a theatrical context. I have sung in Summer Stock (one year in my youth I played Jesus in GODSPELL and Littlechap in STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF), and done cabarets, but it’s always been about the story and the performance and the energy and the narrative, and I’ve gotten by with hitting most of the notes.

This is the first time I’ll be getting up in a venue as a songwriter and musician and singer, with the performance experience playing the supporting role. As Michael and I have been developing our song project, I’ve wound up as lead vox.

The concert series is held at the home and studio of Rick Denzien and Debra Lee, with whom I’ve written a few songs. I met Michael at another concert, watching him improvise on the cello.

“Little Jack Horner” is a lyric I’ve had for years – it’s a “she done left me” song incorporating as many nursery rhyme phrases as I could fit. “Falling Angels” was inspired by the notion that your guardian angel was probably sick of looking after you and wanted to go out and party, and maybe not come back; it would explain a lot about the state of the world. Michael’s music for “Falling Angels” is particularly wonderful.

Anyone who wants attend from afar, there’s a Pay-per-view option.

Creative Juices

If I knew where they came from I’d be able to find them more often. I wrote a lyric a couple of years ago that included the line “The river isn’t always gonna flow.” Because it isn’t. You’re lucky to find it in full roar, and you have to wander great distances sometimes between one roaring stream and another.

I quick glance at the last year of my blog shows….well……a lot of wandering between bodies of water. Longeurs. Gaps. Lacunae. Sporadic posting with a lot of hemming and embarrassed hawing.

Some disappointments and a lot of re-evaluation. That sums up 2010, I think.

What’s interesting is that, before I did a lot of lyricwriting, I got my creative juices flowing in the theatre, onstage and off. And I gave that up for a few years so I could concentrate on the writing more. So when my well seemed to be running dry, I shuffled back, and for the last few months I’ve been back to stage work, getting back in front of an audience.

It’s therapeutic, in many ways, and it’s definitely a confidence builder. Haven’t been able to write a lick, as my headspace has been filled up with line-learing and character-creating, but it’s all part of life’s rich pageant, as the lady said.

So, 2011, what’s in store? I’ve begun some collaboration experiments with jazz/rock/folk cellist Michael G. Ronstadt, I have irons in the fire with my friends The Lyra Project, and I will have a song cut on Jen Foster’s upcoming 2011 CD (date TBA).

Not a bad start to the year. I’m off now to get on a stage under the bright lights, and in a couple weeks will go back to dark corners with my notepad and journal.

I’ll keep you posted.

Man With No Blog

It's simply an outrage that my blog has lain untended for over two months. But I got involved with a performance project (just acting, no musical involvement) and it took over for a while. I will post more details at a later time, as I think it's a timely topic for musicians as well (travel, perform, travel, exhaustion, no energy or time to write).

But my performance duties culminated last Friday night at a cabaret, a fundraiser to benefit the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation (PKD). This disease affects members of my family and we do several events every year, including this cabaret.

Last year, I performed the Rumplestiltzkin song, but this year I managed to get a few songs that were cabaret-worthy, and get some extremely talented people to sing them. There were four in total but I have audio right now for two of them. We had video camera malfunctions and I resorted to my trusty digital voice recorder to capture these two. So the quality is just middling, but the performances were worth capturing.

Carlo Pocklington, who wrote "Yearbook," came up with a wonderful setting for "Man With No Name," a rat pack sort of bar song, and the extremely talented Joe Southard picked up a martini glass and sang it. You can read the (revised) lyrics while you listen.

I was also delighted to have recording artist Liz Seymour on hand, to sing a new song by Eduard Glumov and myself. This fun lyric, "Just a Cup of Coffee," has been sitting in my folders for a while with a very cool pop/jazz setting in an unfinished demo by Eduard. But I knew the song would work not only as a studio recording, but in a simplified jazz/cabaret setting as well.

Both songs feature arrangements and piano by John Waldie, with bass by Paul Graefe.

I'm grateful to both composers for making these songs happen, and to the performers and musicians for letting me hear them live.

The Rumplestiltzkin song

As long as there's a video, I might as well show it. There was no camera operator, it was stationed, turned on and left to run, so it's not the best quality. And it was the end of an evening and I was getting a little weepy, but there you have it.

This is me at a fund-raiser I was hosting, singing "Rumplestiltzkin: Dead at 95"



The studio demo (sung by someone else) and the lyrics are at my website, of course.

Performing, first in an occasional series

Those who know me know that I've had a history of performing, but do it quite seldom these days.

I'm something of a vaudevillian, more of a song-and-dance man. I have stage presence, a strong speaking voice, comic timing and a general comfort level on a stage. And a love of musical theatre.

I'm not a strong singer, so choose material carefully when I perform music - songs in my limited range, and that rely more on the 'acting and storytelling' and less on the sheer vocal quality. Those I can sell.

And I don't play an instrument, so must be accompanied by someone who can keep up with my eccentric and erratic phrasing. My musical ability is present, but limited - I understand, as a lyricist, how the words marry to the music, and how rhythms create different effects; but in terms of creating a full song, even in those cases when I've been able to work through a decent melody line and a not-bad chord progression, I still have to go to a solid musician and say, here's the melody, here are the chords, here's the feel and style the music should have - and let them go from there to play it.

All that said, I got on stage last weekend for the first time in a year, to host a fund-raiser cabaret. Many friends performed, and we had a whiz on the piano (who used to music-direct at a professional theatre). I sang a number of comic songs, including "Jaws" and "I Want To Be A Side Man" (by Dave Frishberg), "If I Had A Million Dollars" (by the Barenaked Ladies, which I sang with Cole Wheeler) and even adapted the famous Stan Freberg "Elderly Man River" sketch to perform with my son.

Towards the end of the evening I performed my own song, "Rumplestiltzkin: Dead at 95" which keeps turning out to be a better song than I thought it was when I wrote it. It's the songs you think about least that sometimes come out the best.
I get emotional towards the end of the evening, and it was difficult to keep my composure - I need to perform it more often to regain some control. But it was a heady moment. I'd love to hear someone else sing it live (there's a hired vocalist on the demo on my website), but it was an out-of-body experience to hear my own lyrics coming out of my own mouth.

The other treat of the evening was meeting noted comedic folk singer Deirdre Flint, who showed up to enjoy rather than perform. One of the performers sang her Bridesmaids Dress song, and Deirdre donated a couple CDs for the cause.